Worthless Check Unit

Each year, local businesses lose tens of thousands of dollars because of bad checks that do not have sufficient funds to cover the amount of the purchase. As a result, businesses are often forced to increase their prices to cover the loss of revenue caused by these checks, which directly affects other customers. The losses can sometimes be so severe that a merchant may have to go out of business. Business owners lose their livelihoods and employees of the business lose their jobs.

The Worthless Check Unit of the District Attorney’s Office was created in late 1992 to help businesses and victims minimize bad check losses. From 1993 to the present over $17 million has been returned to bad check victims in the Birmingham Division of Jefferson County by utilizing the unit’s deferred prosecution program. This means that 100 % of the check, plus the statutory merchant service charge, is returned to the victim. First-time bad check writers can benefit from the deferred prosecution program by avoiding criminal prosecution. Although our primary goal is to return restitution to the victim without adding to the financial burden of the criminal justice system, many more thousands of dollars have been recovered through the court system. All restitution recovered is without cost to the victim. The law requires the bad check writer to pay a fee to cover our costs of enforcing Alabama’s worthless check laws.

The Worthless Check Unit is staffed by investigators and support personnel who vigorously pursue the restitution owed to victims. Each investigator in the unit has over 20 years of experience in law enforcement and a Deputy District Attorney is assigned to prosecute all worthless check cases that go to court. We encourage you to take advantage of this program if you have been victimized by a bad check writer.